Over the past two years, the Minnesota Vikings have added five players to their roster with a Nigerian background.
Some were born in the United States; one left his parents behind in search of a better life, hoping that athletics would either lead to better education or perhaps a professional career in sports.

They are all young, athletic and proud of their heritage, believing that an upbringing stressing the value of a strong work ethic led them to their successes to date.
“I think it’s just upbringing. You come from a bunch of, like you’re just son of immigrants and just have a chip on the shoulder,” said second-year defensive end Ifeadi Odenigbo.
“And this is just a sample: My parents, they grew up Nigerian born or raised and they came from a very, very strict household and kind of what they’ve seen – when they get to here, just being black is hard, just from a standpoint of the challenges you have to deal with.”
“Then, adding the whole culture side of things and not knowing that, so our parents just always told us, ‘Hey, man, when in doubt, when things are getting harder, there’s nothing wrong with working hard.’ So they kind of instilled that in our school work – just work hard, work hard, work hard. They were never really big supporters of sports.”

In addition to drafting Ifeadi in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL Draft, the Vikings selected another defensive end Ade Aruna, in the sixth round that year, then added tackle Olisaemeka Udoh in the sixth round this year and receiver Olabisi Johnson in the seventh round, and finally signed Ifeadi’s brother, Tito Odenigbo, as an undrafted rookie.
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